


Portrait of Him

by its_mike_kapufty



Series: Rhink Ficlets [17]
Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Art Student Rhett, College, Drawing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Erections, M/M, No Smut, Nude Modeling, Roommates, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 14:15:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18152915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_mike_kapufty/pseuds/its_mike_kapufty
Summary: Rhett needs a model for his next drawing assignment.Luckily, he's got Link.Unluckily, Link has to be nude.





	Portrait of Him

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rhinkythingz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhinkythingz/gifts).



“You ready for me, Rhett?”

Rhett lifts his gaze to stare at the far wall of their dorm, head still angled at the drawing pad in his lap. Restlessly, he switches which leg is crossed and clears his throat. “Yep. I’m just in here waiting for you.”

“Don’t make it sound weirder than it already is, man.” Link pokes his head from the bathroom, his fluffy mane brushing through the doorway.

“Link, will you get over it? Please?” Rhett ducks his head down to return scrutiny and scratches his scalp with the back of his selected 6B pencil. “Look, I know you’re uncomfortable--and I’m not thrilled about this either, to be honest--but the professor said we  _ have  _ to turn in a body study as part of the final. You’re really doing me a solid, here. Who else could I ask?” 

Rhett fails to mention that the study was allowed to be a self portrait; like  _ hell _ he’s going to show his own lanky, naked body to a group of people he might have more classes with in the fall. Besides, Link is prettier than him: the angelic softness of his face, the curves of his calves and shoulders, the well-toned muscles he doesn’t seem to have to work for. 

Whether he can tell Link these things without it being awkward is up for debate.

Link steps into the room, barefoot and bundled in his plush gray robe tied about his waist. He makes it halfway to the bed before he stops, rocking back and forth and playing with the rope of his robe but not undoing it.

“You can relax. It’s really okay, bud. You’re just like… an apple,” offers Rhett with a shrug. 

“An apple?” It would be funny if Link didn’t sound so insulted.

“Yeah. You’re a subject I’m studying. Totally clinical. I’m just…” Rhett takes a deep breath. “Lookin’ at shapes and shadows. That happen to make up a picture of  _ you.” _

“Naked. A picture of me,  _ naked.”  _

“Yep.” There’s no time for this. The drawing is going to take at least an hour as is, preferably longer if he can get the details he needs. Fortuitously, Rhett knows how to handle it. “Look bo, I’m not gonna force you to do this if you’re too scared. I get it. Hard, bein’ vulnerable.”

The way Link purses his lips is exactly the reaction Rhett’s looking for. “No. No, it’s  _ fine _ . We’re doin’ this, and you won’t ever be able to give me shit for it.” He takes off his glasses and sets them on the upper bunk. “You want me in your bed, right?” 

Rhett runs his tongue against his teeth at the question. Clears his throat. “Yep. Whatever’s comfortable.”

It’s second-nature to look away when Link drops his robe to the floor in a crescent. Rhett isn’t sure why he gives him the luxury--like postponing his gaze until Link’s in the assumed position will be less  _ naked-best-friend-in-front-of-me.  _ Luckily for the both of them, Link doesn’t waste time settling down. First he sits on the edge of the mattress, feeling the hem of the messy blankets with his fingertips. 

What Rhett doesn’t expect is when Link simply…  _ lays back.  _ He could’ve chosen to twist onto his stomach, but he doesn’t. He leaves enough room above his head to sprawl his arms up in a loose-fisted lounge, rubs his legs together sensually until they rest in a comfortable position. His flaccid dick hangs over his lower thigh, sprouting from a nest of thick brown hair. Rhett drags his gaze up and away from it with a light swallow, finding Link’s face. The guy is squinting at him, and Rhett feels like he’s been caught ogling until Link speaks.

“Can’t see very well without my glasses. Which… I guess that makes this a little easier for me.”

“Y-Yeah,” Rhett nods, focusing hard on Link’s lips and hair and not the expansive planes of his pale body elsewhere. 

“Sorry to say you don’t get the same luxury,” laughs Link, his belly shaking pleasantly from the action. It’s enough to entice Rhett to look at him again, to consider his nudity seriously. Professionally. 

_ He’s just a human. A product of organics and biology and evolution.  _

Rhett glances repeatedly from his blank page to Link, sweeping the pencil over the canvas as he locates a starting point for broad shapes. 

_ A breathtaking specimen. _

The thought gives Rhett pause, but he shakes it off and focuses, getting the slope of chest first, plotting out the space his roommate’s going to take up. The sound of the pencil scratching catches Link’s attention, and he perks up slightly.

“Are you starting?”

“Yeah.”

“...What do I do?”

“Just… stay still.” Rhett frowns at the errant line that slips out when his attention splits in two. “Stop talking. I know how antsy you get, but you gotta not move. Yeah?”

“I can’t even talk?” Link frowns hard at the boards of the bunk above him, and Rhett sighs.

“Why don’t ya go to sleep? You’re good at that. Just take a nap.”

“Y’know I move around a lot when I sleep, too,” laughs Link, furrowing his brow.

_ He does, doesn’t he?  _ “Fine. Just… meditate, then. Don’t fall asleep. Just lie there, and exist, and think about stuff. Okay?” Rhett huffs, grabbing his eraser and trying again on the angle of Link’s knees meeting.

“Geeze. ‘Member that I’m helpin’ you out here, yeah? Ease up.”

Rhett doesn’t answer. He does feel bad for getting grumpy so quickly, but he’s not good at talking and drawing at the same time like some of the people in his course are. He was always alone when he carved existences onto paper, trying to translate vases and bike seats and cloth draped over junk from sight to line in a way that didn’t make him feel ashamed.

It isn’t any different now. He takes his time on Link’s essence and gradually the page fills with dark streaks and powdered graphite smudges of palm prints at the edges. With Link’s hair, he presses down the hardest, soaking black into the page to contrast with the highlights of his dusted chest and shoulders. The folds of blanket obscuring his elbows and ankles are easier for Rhett than Link’s limbs, which is amazing, considering how horrible he is at sketching fabric.

Or maybe he’s simply scared of his ability to accurately capture how ethereal Link is, stretched out over his bed like an adonis.

“People in your class are gonna wonder why you didn’t draw a woman.”

Rhett freezes, glaring over the half-complete piece.  _ “What?” _

“Yeah. They’re gonna wonder why you chose a guy.”

_ Shit.  _ Rhett hadn’t thought of that. But it’s too late now. The portrait is due tomorrow. He’s almost done, anyway. “No, they aren’t. I dunno what the people in your engineering program are like, but not everyone on campus is a judgmental prick. So what if they think I’m gay? Let ‘em.” Rhett hones in on the smaller items he hasn’t gotten to yet: the maze in Link’s ears, the hair on his chest, his nipples. His dick. Not that that was a  _ small  _ detail, but--

“What are you gonna say if they ask you who I am? ‘Cause they will.”

Rhett lays down the tangles of cartilage first, peeking out from behind Link’s locks. “I’ll be honest. You’re my roommate. My best friend.” 

“That’s pretty damning. You don’t think they’ll suspect somethin’? Since you got your lifelong best friend to strip down for you?”

Rhett leaves little shade marks on the page--not too heavy--to fill in as an impressionist take on nipples. “You agreed to it. You’re the one naked in my bed,” he mumbles as he scatters feathered touches for hair on his chest.

“...I did.” Link swallows, and goes to rearrange, but Rhett hisses at him without moving his gaze from the page. The last empty space is between Link’s legs, where his thighs meet. “Rhett, I, uh--”

“Almost done.” Rhett glances up and freezes, eyes locked on Link’s cock.

He’s hard. Well, not  _ hard  _ hard, but harder than he was a few minutes ago. When his cock twitches, continuing its sliding arc to Link’s abs, Rhett stops breathing.

Link doesn’t dare to move while Rhett’s arrested, watching him. Time refuses to go on. He’s fully aroused now, member silky and red and thick against his torso, balls peeking out from the thatch of hair below. Although the sight should perhaps make him uncomfortable, maybe even upset, Link’s need demands to be acknowledged--as does the burning in Rhett’s ears and the heat at the back of his neck. Without thinking, he swipes his tongue over his bottom lip, simultaneously grateful that Link might not have seen it.

One of them has to speak.  _ Not  _ recognizing it would be so much weirder than just cracking a joke.

Only what comes out of Rhett’s mouth doesn’t register as a joke to his own ears. It lacks the typical venom required--lacks anything aside from low observation.

“People are definitely gonna think we’re together if I draw you like that, bo.”

Link begs for mercy from the ceiling, looking like he might implode if he doesn’t get his arms over his face or shield his indecency. Rhett’s expecting him to go on the defense--that’s what Link does. He lashes out, turns it around-- _ this is all your fault.  _ What ekes instead out is feeble and thick, threatening to break down into a whisper. 

“I’m sorry.”

Rhett feels the humiliation radiating off of Link and can’t handle it. Can’t handle knowing that Link’s suddenly ashamed and it has to do entirely with a situation  _ he’s _ pushed him into.

“No,  _ no _ \--don’t be,” Rhett rushes for damage control, averting his eyes and coughing as he examines the incomplete work in his lap. “It’s natural. Fine. Happens to all models. It’s really, really okay.”

Link shifts--just slightly--and Rhett doesn’t chastise him for it. “I’m--I dunno why. Just… laying here, someone’s eyes are on me,  _ focusing  _ on me, and I know I’m the subject of something goin’ on, and then you said--” Link shuts his mouth abruptly, hands twitching up as if to catch his words. Eyes wide.

Rhett doesn’t have to think back. He  _ knows.  _ Had already drawn a line between cause and effect and can’t bring himself to look away from Link now that his throat is dry and heart’s racing.

“I told you that you were in my bed. Naked,” he breathes. For the first time, Link looks directly at him. He might not be able to see clearly, but it doesn’t matter. The contact is electric and sends a jolt up Rhett’s spine.

Link hums high in confirmation, every bit of him pink from cock to ears. He looks like he’s on a torture table, strung out and waiting for the executioner’s axe to come along and put him out of his misery. 

Hesitating, Rhett closes the unfinished drawing and tosses it to the floor. He leans forward in his chair, unable to find what to do with his hands--on his chin, on his neck, on his thighs, on his knees. 

Link’s squirming, unsure of whether he should hold the pose now that the pencil is at ease. He’s exposed and throbbing and flexing his fingers and his chest is fluttering with breaths, on the verge of a panic attack.

Rhett stands, expecting to pace, to leave and give Link space, to duck into the bathroom and let the guy calm down, anything to ease the tension in Link’s head and in his own pants.

He surprises himself when he strides over and swoops down to kiss Link--a graphite-covered hand taking his cock into his grip, natural as breathing. Link lets out a sharp gasp that breaks into a moan, and lets his stillness shatter.

 


End file.
